Mediatwits #6: Bin Laden News on Twitter; Demand Media Goes Long-Form

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Welcome to the sixth episode of “The Mediatwits,” the new revamped longer form weekly audio podcast from MediaShift. The co-hosts are MediaShift’s Mark Glaser along with PaidContent founder Rafat Ali. This week’s show looks at the way the news of Osama Bin Laden’s death played out over Twitter and other new media, making minor celebrities of @ReallyVirtual and @KeithUrbahn.

Our guests this week were two vice presidents at Demand Media, Larry Fitzgibbon and Jeremy Reed, who talked about a new direction for the network of sites — moving away from user-generated content and adding longer features. Plus, Apple relented on some of its strict terms of service for magazine publishers who want to publish iPad editions, letting Hearst and Conde Nast get access to the data on subscribers. (Note: This show was taped yesterday, on May 5, so hence the references to Cinco de Mayo.)

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Mark Glaser is executive editor of MediaShift and Idea Lab. He also writes the bi-weekly OPA Intelligence Report email newsletter for the Online Publishers Association. He lives in San Francisco with his son Julian. You can follow him on Twitter @mediatwit.

Imagine a place where you get your best work + learning done and your children get their best play + learning done. Mediatwits sponsor NextSpace offers workspace and carespace under one roof. Learn more!

Sohaib Athar became an accidental Twitter celebrity for tweeting about the Bin Laden raid in real time

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MediaShift explains how traditional media such as newspapers, magazines, radio, TV, music and movies are changing with digital disruption and adapting their business models for a more mobile, networked world.